10: The Pact

Daphne's pov

I would have given anything to take that word back.

"I heard it somewhere," I said.

"Somewhere."

"Yes."

Daddy raised an eyebrow. "I'm not asking you to solve a riddle, Daphne."

"I don't remember exactly where. I came across the name while I was looking into some things."

"What things?"

"Daddy..."

He studied my face with the same look he gave people who tried to hand him half an answer in a meeting. I held still and let him look. After a long moment, he sank back against the pillows.

"All right. I'll let it go for now."

The breath I'd been holding came out thin. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me yet. I still expect an explanation eventually." He tapped the folder. "Now. Tell me what you know about Chimera."

I pulled the chair closer. This was dangerous ground. I couldn't tell him the world ended, or that I had watched it happen. But I could give him enough truth to make him move.

"It was a secret government project," I said. "The goal was to build enhanced soldiers. Stronger, faster, harder to kill."

"Super-soldiers."

"Yes. And it went wrong. People died. Eventually the government announced the project was terminated."

He caught the way I leaned on the word. "Announced."

"I don't think it was ever really shut down."

"Why not?"

"Because projects like that don't disappear. Not when billions went into them and powerful people stand to gain from the results." My nails pressed into my palm. "I think the research went underground. Private labs. Companies with access to the original work."

It wasn't the whole truth. It wasn't a lie either.

Daddy was quiet. When he spoke again, his voice was careful. "Bernard said that word once."

I went still. "What?"

"At our first meeting. He was trying to explain why I should listen to him, and it slipped out. *Chimera.* Then he looked as though he'd been sick on the carpet, and he told me to forget he'd said it." He turned the water glass in his hands. "I couldn't. I searched for it afterward. Archives, contacts, people who owed me favors. Nothing. Not a document, not a rumor. A word that shouldn't exist, and a man who went white when he said it."

"That's when you stopped thinking he was dramatic."

"That's when I started buying generators."

I looked at the pages on the blanket and felt something loosen in my chest, then tighten again. Bernard knew. Whatever he had been trying to verify before he went silent, he knew what it was.

"Do you think he's in trouble?" I asked.

"I don't know. I've been trying not to think about it." He rubbed his eyes. "Which is why I've decided we should take this much more seriously."

"What does that mean?"

"The property. I meant to build something modest. Enough to sustain a small group for a while." He set his jaw. "I think it needs to be much larger."

I stared at him. "How much larger?"

"Room for the family. Medical staff. A few people we can trust. Sleeping quarters, a medical wing, food storage, power, water. Proper security."

"Communications equipment," I said. "We can't rely on ordinary networks."

He blinked. "You've already thought about this."

"What happens if the grid fails? If the water supply is contaminated? If nobody can travel freely?" The words were out before I could soften them. "And the entry points need reinforcing. Those panels might not be enough."

"I'll have the engineers review it. We'll need a bigger budget."

"Whatever it costs, Daddy. We don't cut corners on this."

A faint smile. "You're starting to sound like me."

"Someone has to."

He laughed, and for the first time since I'd come back, I wasn't carrying this alone. My father was beside me. We could build something strong enough to hold our family.

That was what I told myself.

"One more thing," he said. "I'll keep digging, but I want you to be careful. If this project is as buried as you say, there are people who won't welcome questions."

"I know."

"Do you?" His voice softened. "I don't know where you got your information, and I won't force it out of you. But this isn't a business dispute."

"I understand."

He took my hand. "Promise me you aren't in danger."

I wanted to tell him everything. That I had already died because of the people behind this. That Edward had smiled while I choked. That Gavin and Viola had been taken from me. That the world was racing toward something I couldn't forget.

I squeezed his fingers.

"I promise, Daddy."

The lie tasted like metal.

He searched my face, and I let him. "Good." Then, lighter, as if he'd decided to believe me: "And you will not spend every waking hour worrying about me."

"I'll try."

"Try harder. I'm recovering, not retiring."

"Fine. You follow the doctor's instructions, no working late, and you take your medication."

"You're becoming unbearable."

"Good."

We both laughed. I wanted to freeze that moment and live inside it.

I gathered the pages and slid them back into the folder. "I'm keeping this with me."

"Keep it somewhere safer than a handbag." He paused. "And locked. Edward had access to my desk for three years."

My hands stopped.

I saw it again, clear as a photograph. Edward at the door of the hospital room, his gaze drifting to my father's briefcase, resting there a heartbeat too long.

"I'll take care of it," I said.

Daddy settled back, then frowned at the ceiling. "There's one more thing I've been wondering about. That general."

My shoulders tightened. "Adrik Hale?"

"He turned up at your wedding asking about my land. I assumed it was a routine military inquiry." His eyes went to the folder. "But after what you've told me, I wonder if it isn't."

I didn't answer right away. I remembered Adrik's expression in the hallway, the way he'd held my gaze as if he was trying to read something written very small.

"Maybe we're coming at the same problem from different directions," Daddy said.

I looked down at the folder.

If Adrik was investigating Chimera, then the land, the timing, the way he'd studied my face might not be coincidence.

But why would a general in this timeline chase a project that officially no longer existed?

Unless he wasn't chasing it for the first time.

Unless he had come back, too.